Is Science Superior to Religion Because Science Can Be Mistaken?

Recently I listened to the debate between Peter Atkins and Callum Miller. As usual, Atkins was short on arguments and long on ad hominems, although I must admit that he was more civil in this debate than usual. One of the things Atkins said, however, caught my attention. He said that one of the advantages of science over religion is that in science, one can be wrong, whereas in religion one is never allowed to be wrong. I’ve heard other atheists make the same claim. I find it interesting because whether it’s true or false, it’s irrelevant.

Let’s assume it is true. Let’s assume that science is superior to religion because science allows for it’s claims to be invalidated, whereas religion does not. Is that supposed to make science superior to religion? If so, then it must also be superior to logic and mathematics since it is impossible to be wrong about those areas of study as well (while one can misapply logic and get their sums wrong, logic and mathematics themselves are objective and cannot possibly be false). Rather than being a vice, I would consider the objectivity of religion to be a virtue.

I would actually argue that the claim is false, however. One can be wrong about religion in the same way one can be wrong about science. One can be wrong in science by misunderstanding the objective truths of the physical world. Similarly, one can be wrong in religion by misunderstanding the objective truths of the spiritual world. So whether Atkins is right or wrong, his point is pointless.

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32 Responses to “Is Science Superior to Religion Because Science Can Be Mistaken?”

There is no objectivity is religion. That is why there are so many different ones. To claim that religion has the same type of objectivity as math is reaching. Math, and the laws of nature have set properties, while religion comes from several books written by different people, and interpreted different ways. Please show me how religion has any type of objectivity. I can’t seem to fathom that statement.

You beg the question by assuming that there is no spiritual realm. If there is, however, then religion is a subject dealing with objective truths. That’s not to say necessarily that any particular religion knows all of those objective truths, but the same is true of science. The physical world is an objective truth, but scientists only have a limited and sometimes false understanding of that truth. I think you are confusing ontological questions with epistemological questions.

The big advantage for science is that it’s self-correcting. It’s BUILT INTO the scientific method, through testing and reproduction of results. And thus it gets more and more accurate with time, research and the accumulation of additional evidence.

Religion, OTOH, has no such self-correcting mechanism (well, almost all religions–there are some that will disregard scripture that contradicts science). In fact, it has the OPPOSITE, by declaring dogma that cannot be questioned or changed. Thus, if a religion is wrong, there is basically no way for its followers to know that, and it will forever be wrong. And when one religion confronts another, there is no objective way to verify which one is right, and thus there is automatically some form of conflict, and often that conflict is bloody.

Scientific theories, however, compete through the scientific method, and the losers must give way to the winners. That way the best and most accurate ideas generally percolate to the top, while wrong ideas fall by the wayside.

The end result is that there are literally thousands if not tens of thousands of different religions, almost all of which are mutually contradictory. Thus, there are thousands of religious explanations for life’s diversity…while there is just one scientific explanation. And it’s so effective an explanation that it forms the basis of numerous scientific disciplines and offers predictive capabilities that no religion can match.

A religion can be wrong and never know it. A theory can be wrong…but if so, it won’t be for long.

But if there is a religious tradition that truly derives from divine revelation, it would not need a self-correcting mechanism because it could not be wrong since its source of information comes from a being who has perfect knowledge. In that regard, revealed religious truth is akin to mathematics and logic–it can’t possibly be wrong, and thus cannot possibly be corrected. That’s not a fault but a positive. The only way one would see this as a fault is if they were already convinced that there is no objective spiritual realm to have knowledge of, or that there is no divine revelation of that realm given to human beings. But one must argue for that position, not merely assume it.

You say there is no objective way to adjudicate the truth claims of competing religions. Not so. We can test religious claims. We can test them for coherence, internal consistency, we can test them philosophically, we can test them historically, etc. If they fail to pass these tests, then we can dismiss them.

But if there is a religious tradition that truly derives from divine revelation, it would not need a self-correcting mechanism because it could not be wrong since its source of information comes from a being who has perfect knowledge.

What’s the difference between experiencing “divine revelation” and experiencing delusion? How can you tell the difference between supernatural revelation and mundane insanity? You DO accept that there are people who truly believe God speaks to them, but whom you regard as insane, right?

Thus belief based on ANYTHING but empirical evidence should ALWAYS be suspect. Otherwise the truth of one’s knowledge is a total crap shoot. There is simply NO WAY to know for certain that one religious belief is correct while another one is not…which is why there are so many thousands of religions out there, with all their adherents JUST as certain of the truth of their faith as you are of yours.

With science you can NEVER know if you have the truth, but the likelihood increases with testing, reproducibility and successful prediction. With religion, you can NEVER know if you have the truth…period. You can only THINK you do, and that’s it.

But there are ways to validate or invalidate certain (not all) religious claims. For example, allow me to pose a real world application as a setting for such a test.

If I promise my daughter that, if she cleans her room, walks the dog, and finishes her homework, I will take her to Dairy Queen for a Blizzard, my promise can be easily tested. If she obeys and completes the command, the onus is on me to prove or validate my promise by actually taking her. If I fail to take her, i.e. I fail to keep my promise, and word was not true, I can be disbelieved and disregarded as a liar, falsifier, deceiver, etc. If I take her, my word is established as true; it was completely verifiable.

Now, take this into a religious context. If a specific, easily understood promise is made by a particular religion or faith, if the god or God of that faith is real and true, and is inherently good, honest, and keep His word, then, when the conditions of the promise are met, the fulfillment of that promise should proceed.

Now, for the test.

John 7:37-39 (NKJV),

37. On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.
38. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”
39. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

So then, one need only go to Jesus, believe in Him (the required conditions), and they shall receive an experience in and from the Holy Ghost which is based in Old Testament Scriptures (the promise).

One example of an OT verse that parallels this promise by Jesus is Joel 2:28.

28. “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions (NKJV).

Again, this verse takes on the language of a promise. So, if what Jesus said is true (and it is testable) and if what God promises in Joel is an accurate statement/promise, one should expect that they can easily validate or invalidate this particular religious claim, which is, namely this:

That through Jesus Christ people who come to and believe in Him can receive the Holy Spirit, and that when they do, they will effectively prophesy (or speak in a way not humanly possible by nature means) as proof that the promise made to them by God and Christ is real, reliable, and true.

So, why not put these statements to the test? I have, and have found them astonishingly accurate and reliable, highly convincing, and completely true and meritorious. So have many, MANY others. (For more Biblical promises regarding this Holy Spirit experience, I refer you to Acts 2:1-4, 2:16-21, 2:38-39, Acts 5:32, Acts 10:44-46, and Acts 19:6. All of these verses either: highlight further required conditions, explain the result of the promise, or include a continued or more detailed explanation of the promise to be received.)

So, to the scientists or scientifically minded readers and posters on this blog, why don’t you arrange a verifiable personal experiment based on the above claims from the Christian Bible and see what results come your way?

After all, the only thing holding you back is an insincerity or unwillingness to meet the required conditions of the verses in question.

“You say there is no objective way to adjudicate the truth claims of competing religions. Not so. We can test religious claims. We can test them for coherence, internal consistency, we can test them philosophically, we can test them historically, etc. If they fail to pass these tests, then we can dismiss them.” — jasondulle

Are you saying there are objective tests to determine the existence of the Biblical deity?

SarahB – on the double helix of a DNA molecule is a 3 billion character software code specifically coded to build the proteins that make up the various components of a cell. Without this specific software code governing the formation and function of the cell, no life could be possible. We know of only one source for complex information – intelligence. If you were walking on the beach and saw “John Loves Mary” written in the sand, you would NOT assume it was due to wind and erosion. Instead, you would instantly know these 9 letters came from an intelligent source. The case for God’s existence is CLOSED. It’s as evident as a spherical earth. The software code at the heart of every DNA molecule in cells is but one undeniable piece of evidence. Will it change th mind of someone who doesn’t believe in God? No, because we don’t WANT to believe. It’s not that abundant evidence isn’t all around us.

Same, BTW, with the overwhelming evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s all there but why should I repeat even a few of the facts? You believe or disbelieve because you want to. Evidence is everywhere but only for those who are honest enough to see.

Without this specific software code governing the formation and function of the cell, no life could be possible. We know of only one source for complex information – intelligence. If you were walking on the beach and saw “John Loves Mary” written in the sand, you would NOT assume it was due to wind and erosion. Instead, you would instantly know these 9 letters came from an intelligent source. The case for God’s existence is CLOSED.

The case for God’s existence is closed…really? So why is it that virtually ALL life and earth scientists accept the evolutionary model for the diversity of species? Are the brightest and most educated among us all insane? Or is it a global conspiracy among both governments and private industry to subvert God? 😉 Or maybe…just maybe…they actually understand the topics they spend their lives studying and subjecting to the most rigorous wrong claims-falsification system we’ve ever developed: the scientific method.

DNA is NOT like a computer program, because computer programs are not self-reproducing and subject to mutations as DNA is. And the reason we would recognize the letters written in the sand as an intelligent message is because we know exactly HOW such a message is created by an intelligence–we can even do it ourselves. Furthermore, we have NO model that would create such a message naturally.

However, we DO have a mechanism that works naturally in all aspects of biology: mutation and selection causing species to evolve. We can successfully model it as well as observe it in the lab, in nature and in the fossil record.

Ultimately, while it is possible some sort of god or gods exist, there is no NEED to resort to such supernatural explanations (for which we have no precedence) when we have viable naturalistic explanations (for which we have abundant precedence).

Same, BTW, with the overwhelming evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It’s all there but why should I repeat even a few of the facts? You believe or disbelieve because you want to. Evidence is everywhere but only for those who are honest enough to see.

Since there’s no purely independent secular evidence that Jesus even existed, and thus there is good reason to suspect he never existed as described in the Bible in the first place, and there is no evidence at all that any of the supernatural claims in the Bible are true, it’s a bit of a stretch to say there is “overwhelming evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

Evidence is everywhere, but not everyone is trained to evaluate the validity of evidence. The best trained are scientists, and very few of them believe the resurrection ever occurred.

“Many others have not Aaron. That’s what makes them subjective. Nothing you stated has anything to do with objectiveness. The bible itself is hearsay and unverifiable. faith is not objective evidence.”

It is my experience (subjective as you may say it is) that all people everywhere have the same, uniform experience regarding receiving the Holy Spirit as described in the Bible, specifically the Book of Acts, if they meet the conditions required. The only people who do not experience the same experience have not met the conditions, either through insincerity or unwillingness.

If there were multiple, unrelated experiences without uniformity, then I might agree with you. But since there is only one prescribed experience which is the same for everyone (called the baptism of the Holy Ghost), with multiple witnesses in the Bible explaining it to be so, along with the millions of people in the world and throughout history who have had an identical experience to the one given in the Bible, I would say that the test I gave is quite reliable in determining the validity of God’s existence.

Also, just to add, it is an experience that can be witnessed by others and evaluated. In fact, it was through just such an evaluation I made when I was an unbeliever/atheist, that convinced me of its veracity.

Also, just to add, it is an experience that can be witnessed by others and evaluated. In fact, it was through just such an evaluation I made when I was an unbeliever/atheist, that convinced me of its veracity.

How is that any different from witnessing delusion, acting or crowd behavior, all of which have far more mundane, verifiable explanations than the supernatural?

Everyone can have ‘feelings’ Aaron. I once had a religious experienced back when I was a Pentecostal. I thought it was God speaking to me, but I later realized that it was just me. Having an experience, even if witnessed, only objectively verifies an experience, not a deity. Feeling as though you’ve talked to God cannot be objectively verified, and can only be experienced by that person. If you’ve ever heard of the placebo effect, then you should understand why I don’t consider that kind of evidence as objective.

Interesting that you were a Pentecostal. I would expect then, that you, more than anyone, know exactly what I’m talking about. Do you know what I mean when I say the Baptism of the Holy Ghost and reference the Book of Acts, especially 2:4? And if so, did you ever receive the Biblically mandated experience as described therein?

To Derek;

I thought the conventional wisdom on the subject was pretty much established. And since it can be easily googled with reliable links, I thought you might make the effort since it was your assertion to prove, not mine to disprove. If you don’t or can’t, I will provide the material you request. 🙂

Aaron, yes I do, and yes I did. I spoke in tongues, received the holy ghost, and had an enlightening experience. But it was my experience. I wouldn’t use that to show objectiveness to someone else. I believe in God, and have my own relationship with him. My problem is with the objectiveness of claims. I believe in God, but cannot prove without a doubt that not only does he exist, but that he is the specific God of a certain claim, or what kind of attributes he may have. I do not believe that Jesus was God, or that the Bible is God’s word. I believe Jesus was fully human, and that the Bible was written by men. Those two things are objectively true. Whether there is anymore to Jesus or the Bible is subjective, and depends upon faith. I don’t believe any religion is 100 percent truth, including my own. I believe that all religions are a way of getting closer to God, and becoming a better person. My problem has always been with the I’m right and everyone else is wrong mentality of Christians. Or anyone else for that matter, over something that, without a doubt, can never be proven. Wouldn’t it be best to just say I believe in Christianity because I have faith, but I cannot prove it? Because that would be an objective truth.

The millions of people can’t be wrong approach is a fallacy. Also, these experiences are laid out in the bible, telling people exactly what to experience. I find it quite usual then, that this is the kind of experience they would have.

I agree that if it was your experience only, one that could not be duplicated in any other person, we might call it subjective and therefore discount it as unreliable. However, it is not a one-time, only happened to you experience. The millions I, then you referenced also have the exact same experience: glossolalia. I realize that an appeal to the majority is fallacious, but I don’t think that that is what I am doing.

Rather, I only reference this mass of Spirit-filled people in the world to make the case that a Biblical experience received some 1,980 years ago is still happening today identically to the way it happened then, thus pointing toward the veracity of the Bible.

So, if there was an ancient text somewhere that had an formula for, let’s say, alchemy, to turn lead into gold, and it was discovered, and in it, it explained that these 120 people all followed the formula and it worked, and that, if now, in 2012, someone read the same formula, then did the experiment, and they themselves, turned lead into gold, then found out that millions of other people had done so as well, you might well consider that objective evidence that the formula works, is accurate, is testable/verifiable, and etc.

That is what I am suggesting with the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. It is, along with the Bible, and Creation, the three witnesses that establish this word: God is real. Take one alone, and even as Jesus said, the testimony of one is not true. No one should attempt to establish God’s existence on the Bible alone, or on the universe’s creation alone, or on speaking in tongues as a person calls on the name of the Lord alone. While perhaps persuasive, they lack merit if they stand alone. But joining them together provides acceptable evidence–perhaps not as empirical as a scientist would want–but as legal evidence, if three witnesses all agree with each other, it is enough to establish a fact to convince any jury.

So your experience, as promised by God, as contained in the Bible, follows the formula, if you will, and can be proven, even tested. All people who believe on Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, and receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit speak in tongues. Glossolalia is being studied scientifically, too. The preliminary findings are showing that the part of the brain that controls speech has significantly diminished activity, and yet no on denies that a person speaking in tongues is actually speaking, even if the words are not understood. Essentially, their brains turns off, but they keep speaking.

I conclude therefore that, just because an experience is detailed in the Bible doesn’t mean that said experience, if an attempt to recreate the results is tried, automatically guarantees the same results. Take Daniel’s fast that lead to a visitation by Gabriel, or Elijah calling down fire from heaven. Try as we might, we are never going to duplicate the results. But all people everywhere who sincerely follow through with the required conditions receive and experience the same thing when they receive the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. This creates an expectation that it can happen to others. But it does not delude people into causing it to happen to them. In fact, many are the people who received the Holy Spirit who had no prior Bible knowledge related to the experience, and had no idea what was going to happen to them until after it happened. This means they were not preconditioned to any event and so, didn’t subconsciously cause a self-fulfilling prophecy, or etc.

After all, you wouldn’t say that if I told you to stand in an empty room facing a wall and then close your eyes and walk forward without stopping preconditions you to collide with the wall. You would merely have a reasonable expectation that it will happen, because it will, and automatically, no less.

So, when it does, it’s verifiable evidence that closing your eyes and walking forward without stopping in an empty room toward a wall leads to a collision. Nothing at all subjective about that. Purely objective fundamentally based in reason.

This is the essence of Hebrews 11:1. You mentioned faith. Remember, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

When you put your faith in God and His Christ (who I also agree was fully human), it’s not some blind shot in the dark that you can never verify. Your faith proves to you the very evidence you need to know God and Christ are real. After all, that’s how you received the second witness which proves God’s existence, i.e. the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. It was by FAITH. Your faith led you to a real experience, one in which you and others can replicate, that can be studied, evaluated, reproduced, falsified, and yes, even be looked at objectively.

I’m telling you, this is exactly what I did when I heard someone speak in tongues for the first time. I weighed all the evidence and came away with the knowledge that God was real. And what does the Bible say?

That tongues are a sign to unbelievers (1 Corinthians 14:22). Guess what? I was that unbeliever. I detested God and His Christ, I loathed the very idea of His existence, and actively tried to convert people away from the Christian faith. But one day, I heard my best friend speak in tongues while he was praying, and my paradigm shifted. So I ask you, how did a Scripture that I had no idea even existed validate a concept I knew nothing about, even thought it was written over 1,960 ago? That verse came alive, even in my ignorance, and caused me to immediately believe in God’s existence. Two witnesses established the Word: the Word itself and the glossolalia I was hearing, along with my own in-depth analysis of the situation. The jury was no longer out.

That’s why I know God is real. Then, a few years later, I received the same experience you did, just like everyone else does who receive the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t preconditioned, nor delusional, anymore than you were. It really happened.

So, for what it’s worth. I hope I’ve helped. I really don’t want to be at odds with you and make you feel like I’m arguing or showboating my spirituality before you. I just genuinely care and hope that I can, in any way, help.

Thanks for sharing Aaron. Your faith in your religion is deep and wonderful to hear. I understand where you’re coming from, I just don’t necessarily agree. Your evidence, objective as it may seem, is not tangible and hardly verifiable. The experience is real, I’ll agree to that, but the evidence for a supernatural explanation isn’t objective. It still relies on faith to believe. And it is still a one sided denominational approach.

I wonder, what do you think about objective evidence for beliefs that don’t require speaking in tongues? I believe that a lot of denominations look down upon the ones that speak in tongues. At least that’s the whispers I always heard when I was a Pentecostal. Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t most denominations just believe in accepting Jesus and baptism as requirements? If speaking in tongues is your objective evidence, then is that your way of saying that every denomination that doesn’t speak in tongues is wrong?

Let me see if I can use a valid situation to explain my viewpoint. If 100 guys all went to the police station saying that they all had a vision that Bob killed a guy named Joseph, and then the next day, Joseph was found dead, that would not be enough evidence to convict Bob. Now I’m sure that to all the 100 people who had this vision, that they objectively feel like Joseph did get murdered by Bob. But anyone outside of this circle would have a hard time believing that it is true, because they did not witness it. Having an internal experience can only be seen objectively by the one having the experience. If their is no tangible evidence, then it is all hearsay and speculation. Even if there was a book saying that it was going to happen.

My point is this. Anyone can come into your church after having read the part in the Bible about how to act when receiving the holy ghost and act like they received the holy ghost and sputter out some nonsense that wasn’t words. How do you know if they really had the experience, or that they were just making it all up? Could you objectively point out which ones were telling the truth and which ones were lying? I wouldn’t think so, and to me that makes it subjective.

Many truly despicable people \”receive the Holy Spirit\” and speak in tongues. Many truly noble people try their entire lives to receive it but it never happens.

You know this as well as I do.

Saying that the manifestly evil and degenerate people, who continue manifestly in sin, are actually sincere while those who are clearly sincere are sinful… If you really believe that, you\’re not paying attention.

The prophecies of the \”Spirit\” in church quite frequently prove false. The only ones that do not prove false are vague (eg, \”Jesus says He will return soon.\”) The people dancing in the \”Spirit\” in church fall and get injured, as you would expect if the \”Spirit\” were simply a falsehood of the flesh.

If God exists, miracles would occur. Miracles occur therefore God exists. http://www.fingerofgodfilm.com/ (I also have witnesses in our church who have a) been healed, and b) seen healing from their own prayer)

Unless you can come up with a better theory, surely mine stands up and is counted as fact until proven otherwise?

As I am not aware of any other theory, I think I can leave it at that can I not?

If God exists, miracles would occur. Miracles occur therefore God exists. http://www.fingerofgodfilm.com/ (I also have witnesses in our church who have a) been healed, and b) seen healing from their own prayer)

Unless you can come up with a better theory, surely mine stands up and is counted as fact until proven otherwise?

As I am not aware of any other theory, I think I can leave it at that can I not?

Science is not about choosing a claim in the absence of a better one. And it’s not about accepting unverifiable claims as evidence. I saw David Copperfield make the Statue of Liberty disappear, but I’m not calling that a miracle.

To be scientific, your claims must be reproducible and falsifiable, meaning other researchers must be able to reproduce your results, and there must be some tests that can be performed that could prove your claims false.

For instance, evolutionary theory predicted that all species would be based on the same fundamental architecture (they would have to be, if all life evolved from a common ancestor), that some mechanism must cause changes to this architecture in order to provide variation on which natural selection can act, that transitional species must exist, that the Earth must be hundreds of millions of years old for there to have been enough time to account for the diversity of life, etc. If ANY of these predictions had proven false, then evolutionary theory would have been proven false. Of course, since its beginnings we’ve discovered genetics, mutation, hundreds of transitional species and radiometric dating showing the Earth to be 4.6 billion years old. And any appropriate scientist can reproduce the evidence for himself.

What tests can you provide to falsify the existence of God? What evidence can you provide that can be successfully reproduced by other researchers? Unless you can provide these basic requirements, you can’t consider your claim that God exists to be a theory.

Jason, I was typing a reply and hit some button (I presume) and the page went back and with it, my reply. And since I only have internet at work, and work has been very busy lately, I haven’t had time to re-write anything.

I wonder, would you be interested in continuing our discussion through another medium? We’ve taken this post away from the author’s original intent and we both obviously have more to say and perhaps, even some things in common. It might benefit both of us to do so.